Classical Chinese Language Research Articles

Leftover peaches: Female homoeroticism during the Western Han dynasty1

Female homoeroticism in early imperial China has received minimal scholarly attention. This article purposes to investigate lesbianism in the Western Han dynasty, taking into consideration both the literary and archaeological material. I first offer a succinct rundown of the ancient terminology of male homosexuality, principally in an effort to underline the classical Chinese language’s absence of a precise vocabulary to describe lesbian attachments. Next, I turn to the transmitted textual sources, analysing the two extant records of love between women in order to gauge something of the nature and permissibility of female homoerotic relationships. The final section of this essay is dedicated to mortuary objects, namely the moulded bronze phalli and other sexual training tools disentombed from Western Han gravesites. When properly contextualised, the excavated dildos can be interpreted as having been used by concubines, both within same-sex partnerships and in the course of pornographic displays staged for their master’s enjoyment.

A cross-guidance cross-lingual model on generated parallel corpus for classical Chinese machine reading comprehension

Chinese diachronic gap is a key issue in classical Chinese machine reading comprehension (CCMRC). Preceding work on bridging this gap has been mostly restricted to limited monolingual classical Chinese corpora pre-training and lexical knowledge integration, which require a great deal of human resources. In this paper, we propose a cross-guidance cross-lingual model (CGCLM), pre-trained on a classical and modern Chinese parallel corpus generated from a large language model, to bridge the Chinese diachronic gap and reduce the manual effort. The CGCLM facilitates accurate translation by providing in-context examples and feedback based on the longest common substring between source and target sentences, thereby avoiding untranslated Chinese words. Specifically, we consider three pre-training tasks, i.e., cross-masked language modeling, linguistic label cross-prediction, and semantic cross-aware translation language modeling. The knowledge acquired from masked tokens uncovering and linguistic label predicting can lead to the implicit semantic alignment between two language styles. Taking advantage of the semantic similarity between the same syntactic levels of parallel pairs, cross-aware modeling integrates and transmits contextualized semantic information. We utilize an 18.6G monolingual corpus to create a 37.2G parallel corpus. Manual evaluation has resulted in only acceptable discrepancies between our generated and human-edited parallel corpora. Extensive experimental results show that our proposed model outperforms the state-of-the-art by an average accuracy of 3.13%, 2.44%, and 2.17% on CCMRC, classical Chinese language understanding evaluation (CCLUE), and modern Chinese language understanding evaluation (MCLUE) tasks.

CHINESE AND JAPANESE PHRASEOLOGISMS: A COMPARATIVE ASPECT

The article is devoted to the study of the phraseological fund of the Chinese and Japanese languages, in particular to the comparative analysis of phraseological units from the point of view of their form, structure, features of drawing hieroglyphic signs, semantics and national-cultural components contained in them. The national-cultural specificity of the Chinese and Japanese phraseology is closely related to the characteristic features of the people’s consciousness, the relationship between the language and thinking, the language and culture, therefore the main research approach is primarily comparative, linguistic and cultural. The work examines the development of the Chinese language and culture on the formation and development of the phraseological system of the Japanese language, outlines the relationship between the Chinese and the Japanese idioms. A comparison of the forms of drawing hieroglyphs represents changes in the writing systems of the Chinese and Japanese languages, caused by the historical processes of the development of both languages. The diversity of language habits is reflected in the change in the order of words in a phraseological unit in the Japanese language while preserving the original meaning of the Chinese original source. A number of Japanese idioms borrowed from the Chinese language demonstrate the process of adaptation to the features of the Japanese language, which is determined by the change of certain components in the structure of the phraseology. Despite the close ties and borrowing of elements of the Chinese language and culture, the Japanese language has created its own, purely Japanese, phraseological units that contain national and cultural components that reproduce elements of the people’s lifestyle, customs and historical facts. The composition, structure, national and cultural connotation of the actual Japanese idioms distinguish them from idioms built with the norms of the wenyan, the classical Chinese language. They came from the Chinese language and then became entrenched in the language and consciousness of the Japanese people.

Argument Distinctive Context Functioning of 被 bei (Based on the Material of the Late Classical Chinese Text – “Lunheng”).

The paper deals with some features of Late Classical Chinese based on material from «Lunheng» (1st century AD), specifically, the process of 被 bèi grammaticalization and its possibility to be a distinctive context for noun lexemes. In modern Chinese, 被 bèi is a passive marker in sentences such as O 被 bèi SV. There is also a short form like O 被 bèi V, which is the initial stage in the formation of a passive construction, while the full form appears in late medieval texts. However, it is necessary to understand when exactly the process of grammaticalization of 被 bèi began, and whether this process affected the language of Late Classical Chinese. The main questions this paper addresses are: (1) when did the process of 被 bèi grammaticalization begin; (2) is 被 bèi still a verb in the Late Classical Chinese language and can we syntactically distinguish an argument of a clause in the context of 被 bèi. Not only are verb functions of 被 bèi (which can be found in 5th century BC texts) analyzed, but also supposedly its original nominal functions in earlier texts. The study shows that the passive-like 被 bèi begins to appear even in BC texts, but the verbal lexeme functions remain a major. It can be assumed that in Late Classical Chinese, particularly in the language of the «Lunheng» text, the lexeme 被 bèi doesn’t have passive marker qualities and 被 bèi can and should be analyzed from the point of view of lexical categories, as a transitive verb specifically. Such conclusions make it possible to analyze 被 bèi in an argument distinctive context, that is, the position of 被 bèi in a sentence next to any lexeme can help to identify the syntactic function of this lexeme within the specified context. This means it is possible to determine the position of the argument of any clause, which can later be used for PoS parsing of Late Classical Chinese texts.

Pascal Quignard as Sinophile: Recreating Chinese Antiquity in Contemporary France

AbstractThis article examines the question of reinventing Chinese antiquity in the works of the contemporary French writer Pascal Quignard. It focuses on three aspects of Quignard’s Chinese-inspired works: his rewriting of ancient Chinese texts, his views on the idea of language via classical Chinese language and thought, and his recreation of Chinese antiquity via a radical contemporization of the past. This examination demonstrates that Quignard poses important questions about cultural reception and appropriation, especially as regards the problematic relation between sinophilia, Orientalism, and the reception of antiquity. Finally, the article proposes a nuanced view of Quignard’s sinophilia that recognizes both its merits and drawbacks. It concludes by arguing that despite the pitfalls of cultural misunderstanding and misrepresentation, Quignard spells out the conceptual death of French Orientalism in his refusal to fetishize Chinese antiquity and attests to a tendency in contemporary French literature and thought to creatively recycle foreign cultures and revise one’s understanding through the other.

Chinese Classics as Liberal Arts Education in era of Fourth Industrial Revolution

교양 한문교과는 4차 산업혁명에 대비한 융합학문이 되어 미래사회에 필요한 과목이라는 인식을 심어주어야 한다. 미래사회는 기계로 대체가 불가능한 “인간만의 능력”을 필요로 한다. 그러나 “인간만의 능력” 배양은 기술의 영역도 아니고 인공지능이 할 수 있는 일이 아니다. 한문 교육은 동양 고전을 통해 미래사회를 대비한 통찰력을 제공해 줄 수 있고 그 기반도 마련해줄 수 있다. 기존의 한문교육은 유교 관련 고문의 학습을 통한 전통사회의 문화와 예절 등의 전수에 치우져 있었다. 이러한 이유로 학생들은 한문 교과에 대한 흥미를 잃었다. 한문을 미래사회에서도 통용되는 매력적인 학문으로 만들기 위해서는 유교 경전 기반의 인성교육 위주의 텍스트 이외에 현대사회의 다양한 문제를 다루는 텍스트가 필요하다. 그 대안으로는 非儒家 텍스트 중 道家와 미래사회를 연관한 내용이나 현대사회의 갈등을 해소할 수 있는 내용 등이 있다. 또한 능동적인 수업을 위하여 상반되는 주장을 통한 토론 유도 방법이 있다. 예시로는 사랑에 대한 유가와 묵가의 견해 차이, 노동에 대한 맹자와 묵자의 견해 차이 등을 제시할 수 있다. 한문 교과가 나아갈 길은 한문텍스트를 통해 미래로 가는 길을 보여주는 것이다. 미래 사회와 관련된 지혜, 미래사회의 생존 방법을 안내해주는 수업을 진행해야 경쟁력이 있다.The Chinese Classics, should be included as a Liberal Arts course in convergence study for the fourth industrial revolution to establish that it is a necessary subject for future society. Future societies need human capabilities that cannot be replaced by machines. However, the cultivation of human capabilities cannot be achieved by technology or artificial intelligence. Classical Chinese language education can provide insights for future society through Oriental classics, creating a foundation for these capabilities. The existing Classical Chinese language education is centered on the culture and manners of traditional society through the teachings of Confucianism. Thus, students have lost interest in Classical Chinese language. In order to make Classical Chinese language an attractive subject that can be useful for future society, texts dealing with the problems of modern society are necessary along with texts focusing on personality education based on Confucian scriptures. Some alternatives include Daoism and future society in non-Confucian texts, as well as resolving conflicts in modern society. There are ways of eliciting debate in classes by posing conflicting arguments, for example, Confucianism for love, differences in Mohists, differences between Mencius and Mozi opinions on labor. Classical Chinese language classes can show the way to the future through Classical Chinese texts. These classes can be productive only when they impart wisdom on future society and survival.

SHÌ (是) DALAM BAHASA CINA MODERN (现代汉语) DAN KLASIK (古代汉语)

Abstract. This article describes the use of the word 是(shi) in Modern Chinese Language (Mandarin/MCL) and Classical Chinese Language (CCL), and compares them so that can understand the similarities and differences of the word, both the structure (includes the class of words) and their meaning. This study describes the symptoms of language especially in syntactic and semantic, using comparative analysis methods. The results of analysis indicates that generally the word 是(shi) in MCL is verb, functions as a predicate, and becomes a connecting verb (copula) between the subject and its object, or connects nouns, pronouns, other phrases, and expresses many meanings. Conversely, the use of 是(shi) in CCL is very rare, and generally not as verbs or copula, but as pronouns and conjuctions.

Authorship Attribution in Huayan Texts by Machine Learning using N-gram and SVM

This paper aims to evaluate the authorship of Buddhist texts in the classical Chinese language, specifically focusing on Fazang’s Huayan texts, using computational statistical methods. I also briefly introduce the basic ideas and processes related to this estimation. Regarding statistical techniques, this paper utilizes n-gram and one-class SVM (Support Vector Machine), a technique of machine learning.BR The authorship attribution (AA) process in stylometry using machine learning can be divided into the following three stages: (1) Building a Corpus → (2) Extracting a Feature Set → (3) Learning and Predicting Authorship.BR From the results of the tests, the following can be estimated.BR (1) This one-class SVM model is somewhat reliable given that training observations and regular tests are distributed in similar regions and abnormal tests are in different regions.BR (2) As the target is located in a different area from the training observations and the regular test area, the target is not likely to be Fazang’s work.BR (3) However, considering the fact that it is closer to training observations and regular tests than an abnormal test by Zhiyan’s writing, it can be inferred that the Huayanjing wenda is closer to Fazang’s writing than Zhiyan’s.BR One thing to keep in mind is that this is only a preliminary test. However, I think that there is enough meaning to show the possibility and direction about AA in Chinese Buddhist literature.

Ambiguity, Scope, and Significance: Difficulties in Interpreting Celestial Phenomena in Chinese Records

AbstarctSeveral problems contribute to difficulties in interpreting transient celestial phenomena as described in Chinese records. Frameworks are an overarching problem.Tianwen, the modern Chinese term for astronomy, in pre-modern times included meteorological phenonemena and was concerned with omenology. Manuscripts that include star charts and comets but also meteorological phenomena and omen reading texts were routinely reframed in modern scholarship to appear as if they included only astronomical content. The scope of pre-moderntianwen, however, was broader than its modern sense. Pre-modern celestial phenomena had political and religious significance. Apparent ambiguity arises from the presence of both meteorological and astronomical phenomena in a single category and from features of the classical Chinese language. Accounting for these problems is essential for research into transient phenomena using historical archives.

Desperately Seeking ‘Justice’ in Classical Chinese: On the Meanings of Yi

This essay sets out to search for an equivalent Chinese word to the English word ‘justice’ in classical Chinese language, through ancient Chinese philosophical texts, imperial codes and idioms. The study found that there does not seem to be a linguistic sign for ‘justice’ in classical Chinese, and further, yi resembles ‘justice’ in some ways and has been used sometimes to translate ‘justice’, but yi is a complex concept in traditional Chinese philosophy with multiple meanings and it is dissimilar to ‘justice’ in their semantic and pragmatic meanings in Chinese and English legal culture. While ‘justice’ is a keyword and fundamental to Western law, yi is not a legal word or concept in classical Chinese in traditional China. Given its complexity, yi does not have a one-to-one equivalent in English. It sometimes carries a sense of ‘righteousness’ and occasionally ‘justice’, but yi and ‘justice’ are not equivalent. In view of these, it becomes understandable that the translations of yi in contemporary Chinese usage vary ranging from ‘friendship and justice’ to ‘greater good’, among others. The meaning of yi is still uncertain and context sensitive as it was two thousand years ago.

Rethinking Taiwanese nationality and subjectivity: implications from language issues in colonial Taiwan in the 1920s

This historical study reflects on history curriculum debates over the last 20 years in Taiwan. To open up possibilities for contemporary Taiwanese to rethink themselves in terms of national culture and subjectivity, this paper explores the construction of Taiwanese subjectivity in the past. It focuses on the history of Taiwan under Japanese occupation as a key issue in history curriculum debates. Particularly, it examines language issues in the 1920s, an important theme in the histories of the formation of Taiwanese consciousness, ideology, and cultural nationalism during the Japanese colonial period. Rather than addressing issues of identity (national or cultural), identifying who Taiwanese really were, or looking for Chinese or Taiwanese consciousness, this study explores how meanings of “Taiwanese” in the 1920s under Japanese occupation were constructed in the discourse of language reform for civilisation. The analysis of the New Culture Movement discourse suggests that the classical Chinese language of Hànwén as a valuable cultural resource and flexible linguistic instrument played an essential role in constituting Taiwanese subjectivities that shaped Taiwanese practices of the self for distinctive civilisation.

On the universality of “rights”: Absence and presence of “rights” in the Chinese language

AbstractThis paper wishes to challenge the proposition that the word “rights” is a universal and innate concept in human societies. It provides an analysis of the absence and presence of the word “rights” in the Chinese language and culture in traditional and contemporary China. It presents a linguistic and cultural explanation for the fact that classical Chinese language and culture did not have an equivalent word or concept for the English word “rights.” After the word and concept of “rights” were introduced to China from the West in the second half of the nineteenth century, the new word

Entre Macerata y la Ciudad Prohibida. De Amiticia交友 論 (Jiaoyou lun) (1595) de Matteo Ricci

In the process of the entrance of Christianity into China, the figure of Matteo Ricci is fundamental. It represented a qualitative jump, because he established an unprecedented intercultural dialogue. His learning of classical Chinese language and his capacity for dialogue with Chinese educated elites produced a work in Chinese language that became one of the first steps in the field of Sinology. De Amiticia 交友論 (Jiaoyou lun) (1595) compiles and translates into Chinese a selection of aphorisms and philosophical phrases from the Western tradition. This work represents an initial step of high significance for religious and intercultural dialogue.

Fusion, Comparative, "Constructive Engagement Comparative," Or What? Third Thoughts on Levine's Critique of Siderits

We have been invited to contribute a short assessment of Levine's response to Siderits’ position in the emerging debate between fusion and comparative philosophy. Perhaps a brief word is in order regarding our backgrounds: Michael Nylan is a student of early China, with strong inter-disciplinary training and interests, who has attempted work in both philosophy and translation. Martin Verhoeven is a historian by training, a translator by avocation, and a Buddhist practitioner. Both of us have committed ourselves for decades to past traditions that can only be accessed through classical Chinese language, and that surely colors our views. At the same time, those views are not identical, but stereophonic.

Derrida and Comparative Philosophy

This article argues that Derrida’s thinking is relevant to comparative philosophy. To illustrate this, at various stages classical Daoism is compared with Derrida’s thought, to highlight Derrida’s “applicability” and to see how using Derrida can contribute to new interpretations of Daoism. The article first looks into Derrida’s engagement (or lack thereof) with non-Western thought, and then proceeds to his extensive work regarding language and translation, comparing this with views on classical Chinese language and translation of key Daoist characters. It then explores Derrida’s efforts at opening up philosophy to its outside, and argues that he was very much concerned with other ways of thinking and their possible influence on Western thought. The final section argues both that Derrida’s abiding concern with otherness and alterity forms a fertile background from which to reinvestigate traditional interpretations of classical Daoism and that employing his way of thought can lead us to interesting new perspectives on Daoism.

Toward a Refutation of Malevolent Voices

“Po e'sheng lun” (Toward a refutation of malevolent voices) is an essay from the formative period of the famous Chinese writer Lu Xun (1881-1936), penned in Tokyo in the classical Chinese language, and first published in December of 1908 (issue no. 8 of Henan, a soon-to-be-banned journal run by Chinese students in Japan). In many ways it is the most extraordinary of the essays of his Japan period, in that it defends a number of markedly unpopular positions. Lu Xun begins by painting a dark vision of the intellectual and political climes in China at the time of this writing, depicting China as “corroded at the core and wavering spiritually” with all channels for discussion blocked (by the control of the Qing dynasty at home) and the people's minds deluded by the rash doctrines of demagogues and opportunists (active abroad). The author then states his belief that the nation's hope lies in the sincerity and dedication of her intellectuals, especially those who have had experience abroad. By giving voice to their heartfelt sentiments (xinsheng), they may still be able to break through the walls of darkness and silence, and deliver the nation from falsehood and chicanery. But he qualifies this by stressing the limited number of persons with unmitigatedly sincere intention. He ultimately takes China's scholar-gentry to task for having a far greater degree of moral culpability in the present situation than they are willing to admit, rather than blaming it all on the corruption of the dynasty or the avarice of foreign aggressors. In the course of the same argument, he springs to the defense of Buddhism, myth, and religious observances, arguing that those members of the gentry who, presenting themselves as enlightened members of a modern intelligentsia, attack Buddhism as superstition, and superstition as the root of China's backwardness, are merely attempting to foist the blame they ought rightly take themselves onto someone else's shoulders. He further excoriates the simplistic popular trends toward nationalism as bestial jingoism and chauvinism. He ends by exhorting the Chinese to promote the cause of freedom in other countries, as did Byron in aiding the Greek struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire.

Logic, Language, and Grammar in Early China

In examining what he calls the logical features and logical concepts of the Classical Chinese language Christoph Harbsmeier has shown in this volume of Science and Civilisation in China that logic is logic and that, like mathematics, physics, and chemistry, for example, logic in China is no different from logic in the West in its primary, fundamental nature. Whatever differences there may appear to be are secondary matters of how logical propositions are expressed in the language and of the accidental fact of the particular concerns of extant texts. An analysis of the logical features of Classical Chinese becomes a useful and revealing part of a comparative study of grammar in Classical Chinese and in the principal Western classical languages, Greek and Latin, and in English. Grammars may differ ; the meanings of words and of syntactic constructions may differ, and as a consequence logical propositions may appear to be formulated in different ways in Chinese and English (or other Western languages), but the underlying premises and conclusions of logical reasoning are language independent, and the logical features of the Classical Chinese language reflect linguistic universals.

Communicating the Intangible: An Anishnaabeg Story

The Euroamerican coauthor of this study initially became involved in the enterprise of crosscultural interpretation in the area of classical sinology. Trained in literary Chinese by the inductive method (Creel 193852), the problems associated with internalizing an alien mindset due to linguistic differences never arose. The inductive method taught the classical Chinese language by avoiding the teaching of grammar and rhetoric, substituting instead the assimilation of the language through learning to think in the language. In other words, the method was similar to the way traditional Chinese learned literary Chinese: the memorization of texts on ethics and morality to develop vocabulary in the context of acculturation. The effect on the coauthor was a shift in the basic perceptions of reality from one of the possibilities of Indo-European language cultures to that of traditional Chinese culture. The process was enhanced by the parallels of lifestyles in that both Euroamerican, at least in the 1960s, and traditional Chinese culture were socio-politically stratified, with intellectuals assumed to be minimally upper middle-class regardless of actual economic circumstances, and highly literate. Continuing education in the tradition by becoming close friends with some of the last generation of Chinese to be KEN PITAWANAKWAT IS AN ANISHNAABE HEALER IN TRAINING. JORDAN

Chinese Language, Chinese Philosophy, and “Truth”

Pre-Han philosophical tradition did not address issues for which the concept of truth was central. Classical Chinese philosophy had virtually no metaphysical theory. The theory of language was mainly pragmatic. The semantic doctrines that were developed focused on terms rather than sentences or sententials. The Chinese theory of knowledge was primarily a theory of know-how and was not based on contrast between knowledge and belief. Chinese philosophy of mind treated heart-mind as a cluster of dispositional attitudes to make distinctions and to act upon, not as a repository of cognitive content about the world. Discussions of inference and semantic paradoxes used explicitly pragmatic terms rather than semantic ones. These differences can be partially explained by features of classical Chinese language in which compositional sentencehood is not important or syntactically obvious, and in which the counterparts of propositional attitudes take terms rather than sentences as objects.

A brief chronological and bibliographic guide to the history of Chinese mathematics

The history of Chinese mathematics remains largely unknown in the West. This situation is the result of several factors: geographic, political, and linguistic. Few Western scholars possess the necessary facility in the Classical Chinese language to seek information about Chinese mathematics from primary sources. Yet despite the deficiency, there does exist a rich, albeit dispersed, literature on the history of Chinese mathematics in Western languages. The purpose of this contribution in to call the reader's attention to this literature and to the history of Chinese mathematics in general.